"Brokeback Mountain" and "Mexico" Metaphors

[tiawahcowboy]

Some people have misunderstood in the movie scene when Jack told Ennis in the (lakeside) trailhead parking lot, "So what we got now is Brokeback Mountain! Everything is built on that! That's all we got!"

They have assumed that their last camping "fishing" trip was to Brokeback Mountain.

But, according to Annie Proulx, the guys never went back together to Brokeback Mountain.

Just like "Brokeback Mountain" became a name for the fishing/camping trips in the Wyoming Mountains every year for 16 years, "Mexico" was used in a similar way when Jack responded to Ennis's "Been a Mexico, Jack?" (from the book).

Ennis tried to relive his Brokeback Mountain experience every time he went camping with Ennis.

Jack's "Mexico" was just every time Jack had sex with a guy who was not Ennis Del Mar.

After Ennis mentions about May being the trade off for August, he asks, "You got a better idea?"

To which Jack replies with a bitter and accusatory tone, "I did once."   

Here is a book quote showing why Ennis asked if Jack had been to Mexico:

Ennis said nothing, straightened up slowly, rubbed at his forehead; a horse stamped inside the trailer. He walked to his truck, put his hand on the trailer, said something that only the horses could hear, turned and walked back at a deliberate pace.
   "You been a Mexico, Jack?" Mexico was the place. He'd heard. He was cutting fence now, trespassing in the shoot-em zone.

Well, in 1983, the news from Mexico was not it was an great place for a queer to have sex; it was a place where queers could get killed for being themselves, possibly with a murder weapon like "the tire iron." I knew that in the early 1980s, too.

So when Jack responded to Ennis, he did not answer in the way that Ennis might have expected, instead he said the following:

"Hell yes, I been. Where's the fuckin problem?" Braced for it all these years and here it came, late and unexpected.

IMO, Jack had never been to Mexico and if he had, I seriously doubt that he went there for sex, especially with a male prostitute. Besides, unlike Ennis, Jack Twist knew more about what was going on in the world.

[Karan13]

I agree with the `Going to Brokeback mountain , untill reading the short story i always thought that was their`Place` to go and escape. In the story however you realise that they never do return there i think thats why it seems to mean so much more that Jack wanted his ashes up on Brokeback as it was the place that changed his life , where he fell truely in love and was at his happiest.
     I thought the `Mexico`was purely used as it was a safer place to go  and have a Gay relationship , i thought Ennis reacted as he did as he saw Jack as cheating on him , knowing he had gone to Mexico to have sex with another man. xx kaz

[bbm_stitchbuffyfan]

Okay, wait a minute, what's this? I remember in the short story that Proulx referenced our boys never returning to Brokeback. (So metaphorically poignant.) But in the movie, I thought they had returned to Brokeback every time. But come to think of it, I cannot remember any details that make me lean toward either side. More ambiguity, perhaps?

I don't know anything about whether or not Mexico was 'safe' for gays in that day and age but I suppose Ennis had heard about the male prostitutes there somehow. I got the double meaning in the "You been to Mexico?" "Hell yes, I've been to Mexico..." lines.